We need stories because more than anything they tell us who we are,

and who we can be.

Fiction is so much more then escapism. Stories split our minds wide open, and the imaginations that were damned up when we became adults and swallowed the lie that being  mature means being a “realist.”

When we choose stories, we enter new worlds, somewhere over the rainbow,  and we begin to understand our world.

We meet characters and if we let them they became our friends.

They remind us we are not alone. That each human life means something.

They help us know ourselves, indeed, they are a reflection of ourselves, pieced together with parts of the old woman who lives next door and stares longingly at her driveway, and our Uncle Fred with crooked teeth and sparkling eyes who speaks of things way above your head.

Stories. All of us are living one. Breathing one. We all want to get lost in a good one, suspend belief for a moment. Maybe what we really want is to live in a way where we suspend belief about our own lives,

I can’t believe I get to do this,
that I get to live like this
I get to be who I am.
That after years of self loathing I can love me.

Our stories reflect what we long for.

What makes a hero?

Who is prince charming?

How to recognize the face of our real enemy,

our Real Savior.

Beauty on the other side of pain.

What adventure looks like.

Stories, in essence, tell the gospel.  They reflect grace and love and redemption that we can’t always see in our world.

But stories help us see what we have,
what’s in the people around us, in ourselves.

Stories help us resurrect beliefs we let die with childhood.

Magic.

A band of friends, journeying to find answers, to save the world, to understand what it means to live.

Overcoming obstacles, especially fear.

Choosing action over sitting on our couch any day, Carpe Diem.

Anything we can dream up is real.

We need stories because they destroy impossibilities.

We need stories because they beckon us to live greater ones.

I am a tree-hugger, but not necessarily in the way most people define it. Sure, I am beginning to be more concerned with environmental issues, and I am definitely the product of the hippy era, but I wouldn’t define myself completely by that stereotype. I just love trees. Most of the memories of my childhood are playing in the woods of New Hampshire. The woods were thick and full of life, playground for my imagination. A fallen log became a spaceship that took me on a tour of the milky way. An abandoned logging clearing filled with piles of wood chips and stacked logs became my own Atlantis, a hidden city were anything was possible.

Then there was The Tree. The Tree was a matronly pine, standing friendly and fat, arms wide open just waiting to be climbed all over and tickle me with her needles. Sap stuck to my fingers together like superglue, but I stayed hidden and content on her shoulders. I could see my whole kingdom from that vantage point. The Tree became a place I would return to year after year even as growing up brought new troubles to my mind. Up in The Tree I felt a world away from fear or worry.

When we moved when I was 13, I said goodbye the only universe I had ever known. Memories surfaced on every step of property surrounding our mobile home , and I went to the The Tree one last time. I thought of the times I had cried and dreamed there. I remembered the drama ensued over The Tree’s rightful family, when the neighbors who hated us claimed the property line was botched. I thought of the year we had butchered chickens under her shade and I laughed sadistically as some ran around headless. I watched the old tire swing in the breeze and knew nothing would ever be the same.

Life on a dead end dirt road unfinished house proved trying to my antsy adolescence. I quickly scoured our new property for a tree to befriend. I encountered a skinny Birch tree that loomed over a stone wall.  The wall provided a sense of risk and adventure- one slip of the foot and I could crack my head open. But I knew I had never fallen, and I never would. The woods at the new house was younger and more wild, becoming a nearly impassible jungle come spring. It was a different feel to sit there, staring at the jagged rocks below me, around me nothing but the thick stillness of country.

The Birch became my place to come as my teenage angst worsened. First time going to school. (I was home schooled) First boyfriend. Heart break. Peer pressure. Questioning my faith and throwing away my innocence. The Birch was abandoned for months at a time, but when I needed a break from reality, I knew it was waiting for me to return. The Birch became my church- I could actually have a conversation with God and be honest about what I was telling Him. I could let the tears come, and know that my questions may not be answered. Up above things in the shelter of the woods, I was ok with life not always resolving. After I left home, whenever I return to New Hampshire I made sure to spend time in The Birch.

Now that I live in Texas, I am still surrounded by woods- only a slightly different kind. The woods here are less linear and more brambly and fractal. Today, I saw a tree wrapped around another thicker trunk, bent and curved going upward like a spiral staircase for pixies. I walked up it, wishing it went higher then it did, hoping to find some hidden abode, some other world like in Avatar.  There is no rhyme of reason to the woods in Texas. They are a form of beautiful chaos, and I love it.

I am thankful for trees and what they have meant to me.  My dream is to live in a tree house someday, and my hope is that I am never too old to climb a tree.

A picture of my treehouse (drawn for me by my wonderful boyfriend, Jean-Thomas Louvier)

Here is a video about the different projects we have been working on as a team here at YWAM. I haven’t been involved in all of these, but it’s just a glimpse of some of the stuff we do here.

The new discipleship training school has started to arrive, I can feel the excitement in the air. It’s so amazing to know that people’s lives are about to be changed.

Friday we are hosting a concert here, it’s gonna be fun. I hope all you guys in the area will come.

Here is the video project for East Texas Rescue Mission I just finished. yay!

I heard about the riots in Urumqi, China and I was heart broken. It’s sad how I can hear news about death and destruction and people dying in all parts of the world, but it’s easy to be numb to it, if I am not somehow emotionally connected to it. I am definitely emotionally connected to Urumqi. My team spent quite a bit of time there when we were traveling across the silk road shooting footage for our still- in- the- can documentary, “Journey: the Silk Road of China.” The farthest place in the world from the ocean, Urumqi is a wild and beautiful cultural clash of colors, scents and sounds. I met a girl there who put a face to largest minority group in China, and really changed my life. Read my story about it here.

I decided to make a video with some of my favorite pictures from that city, in hope to promote peace in the midst of all the ethnic tension happening.

My heart is with the people in Western China and I hope to return someday, sooner than later.

I want to start a homeless shelter and/or an orphanage. I’ve been obsessing and dreaming about it lately. I have this vision to have a home for the down and out to come and refresh, find healing, find peace and love and a community and through that, find Jesus. The times when I have felt most alive are the times when I am simply loving on people that society may look down on. I guess that’s what being a christian really is… so many things I am learning and learning over again.

We’ve been going to the East Texas Rescue Mission in Tyler. They opened in the fall, and I actually took a team of the first volunteers from our DTS. I found out they had a picture of us framed in the office. It was so awesome to see how they had grown, the men they are ministering too. When we went on Thursday we got to meet the director, and talked to him about helping re-do their newletter, and make a promo video. I am really excited about the promo video, this is really something I love to do. Monday we are going into to get footage, photos, and do interviews. We met this one kid, who’s parents dropped him off at the shelter when he turned 18… So sad, I can’t imagine….

I will make sure to post the video when we are through.

I’ve been trying to pick up some freelance writing gigs, as well as donating plasma for some money every weeks, but I am still having a hard time finanically. If you would like to be a part of what I am doing here at YWAM, please click the donate button to the right. A good way to help too, is to simply purchase my book. I’ve been working on a new “trailer” for my book, that I will be posting soon.

I will leave you with this quote by good ‘ole CS Lewis,

“To be loved by God…not merely pitied, but delighted in, it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”